“There’s a stirring in My Soul”: Conservatives have an Anti-Woman Agenda up their Sleeve

Like most children, I told lies when I was a little black girl. I told big lies. I told small lies. I told white lies. I told lies. And, even had the audacity to argue with my “all seeing all knowing” do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do black grandmother about the usage of lie over her usage of “telling a story.” What does telling a story have to do with telling a lie? I tell you, this infuriated me. I prefer the word lie. Even though my grandmother and I had many disagreements over the terming of untruths often leaving my backside sore with resentment, she had a remarkable almost supernatural way of knowing when I, her precocious granddaughter, was telling her a lie. She would say with a type of black woman resolve, “There’s astirringinthepot. . .there’s astirringinmy soul,” and before she could finish her statement I knew she knew that I had lied. And, boy did my sore backside know it too. And, so in the tradition of my no nonsense black grandmother, I say, “There’s astirringinthepot. . .there’s astirringinmy soul that somethingis amidst in Conservatives—religious fundamentalist, Republicans, Tea Party Members—grand desire to restrict or completely annihilate US’ women’s right to choose.

To make such a brazen stand, publicly, through Komen, Conservatives must believe one or two things. The first thing they must believe is that women and girls are weak that they lack the spirit of fight. Secondly, they must believe they have some-thing “up their sleeve” to ensure that women acquiesce to such archaic notions of fertility. I tell you, there is a stirring in the pot and a stirring in my soul, that both beliefs are true. Yes, they believe women and girls to be passive, but they also believe they have something Machiavellian style “up their sleeve” to make their many state allies like Virginia at this present moment create and pass state policies that will constitutionally challenge Roe V. Wade. It is as if they sense a “political opportunity structure” emerging so that every aberrant desire of female submission becomes a possible political win.

Once again, I tell you, the Komen Anti-Woman Debacle is a sign that Conservatives have something up their sleeve because they were able to get Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation to publicly deny Planned Parenthood another sister health organization. Whatever clout they have, have made them think they could win even in the midst of women pro-health supporters watching and waiting to respond.

Do you hear me when I say, something is amidst and it “smells to high Heaven.” As women and supporters of womankind, something in you should be stirred up. Something in you should say, “There is something about all of this that does not feel quite right” that something is amiss with all the latest assaults on women’s bodies here in the US. As stated earlier, the issue of seeking to control women’s bodies is not new and many women based on their class, race, country of origin, language, and sexuality experience it in various kinds of ways, however, there is something “larger” brewing here. I can’t put my finger on it as of yet, but something is not right not only with the picture of men sitting before Congress talking about our bodies, but on women’s ability to be free of patriarchy which is why conception cloaked in religious fervor is a misnomer. Therefore, we as critical thinking people . . . we as spiritually aware people . . . we as survivors of sexual trauma people . . . we as envisioners of a world without war people . . . must constantly be alert when media and governments choose to focus on women’s bodies.

We must learn to trust the stirrings within us because those stirrings will have profound implications for our world and, specifically, for the lived experiences of women worldwide. Yes, there’s a stirring in the pot and a deep bottom well like stirring in my soul . . . and it smells to high Heaven.

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